


Snapshots

by AntarcticBird



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: FLUFF FLUFF SO MUCH FLUFF, I just want them to be happy, Lukas is a lovesick puppy, M/M, Philip is awesome and Lukas just wants to ramble on about him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 20:38:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9675197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntarcticBird/pseuds/AntarcticBird
Summary: Lukas doesn’t really get all the fuss about photography at first.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I did my best to resist these boys (yeah okay, I gave in like ten minutes into the pilot, shut up) but yes, I'm writing fic about them now. Because I have a lot of feelings about them and I have a lot of feelings about the feelings they have for each other and basically I just want them to be happy.
> 
> Also, holy shit this turned out so fucking fluffy and sweet. Like, seriously. Don't forget to brush your teeth after. Extra warnings for run-on sentences and lots of *emotions*. I don't know what happened, I just wanted to watch a fun new show. Yet here we are.

Lukas doesn’t really get all the fuss about photography at first.

Sure, he knows some people are awesome at it and some not so much. Like, the stuff Philip uploaded to his channel? He’s never had any footage that good before. Not ever. And yeah, having pictures and videos to remember things is nice. He knows all of that. But beyond that, he just doesn’t get it.

Philip’s into it, he knows that — that’s why he’d managed to talk himself into hanging out with him at first. Because Lukas needed someone to take good videos for his channel, and Philip was there and willing to take them. And when Philip sometimes talked about photography like it was something more, Lukas never really thought about what he meant by that.

He still doesn’t fully understand it. What he does understand, though, is that the true reason he kept Philip around was never about the footage. Well, okay, yeah. It was about that too. At least a little. He really did like what Philip was able to do even with a crappy cell phone camera, and he really thought it would do a lot to help him find a sponsor. Which was what he wanted. But now that he’s no longer twisting the truth in his head, he wonders how he could ever manage to convince himself it wasn’t about Philip too.

It was probably, like, denial or whatever, because he didn’t want to think about the real reason too much. Because the real reason was something that had taken root deep in Lukas’ chest and in his stomach, and has just been spreading from there ever since, into every part of him, every time he even just thinks of Philip.

It’s almost like a craving, he thinks — Philip’s presence in his life, the way he starts feeling jittery and impatient when they can’t see each other for too many hours. The way his body relaxes and settles once Philip is with him again.

And the thing is . . . the thing is, when he looks at him, maybe he does get the picture taking thing after all. Because, he thinks, you take pictures of things that are beautiful, right? To preserve them and remember them? 

And some photos are even called art. Which is something he’d honestly never thought about before, because art is paintings and stuff. But capturing a moment of something beautiful, at the right second, from the right angle, in the perfect light . . . that’s art too, apparently. And when he looks at some of the pictures Philip takes, he almost gets why. They’re awesome.

Lukas has no idea how to take photos like that, not with a camera. But lately, or maybe actually since the moment he met Philip, he realises that he’s started taking pictures with his mind and storing them there like in a museum. Or an art gallery or whatever, he’s still not quite sure about the right words for all of this; it’s all so new to him.

There are a lot of pictures in his mind by now, snapshots of different moments, and sometimes he can’t decide which one he likes best. 

He has a thousand of Philip’s face in different light and with different background, some focusing on his eyes, on his smile, on the way he bites his lip or the thing his hair does sometimes when the wind picks up, or even the whole complete picture of him in those moments he just completely takes Lukas’ breath away just by existing. He has pictures that are maps of every mole on Philip’s chest and the curve of his ribs and the veins in his arms, the length of his skinny legs, the shape of his toes. It’s all there in his mind to take out and look at when Philip’s not there; all these pictures, and they’re spreading warmth throughout his chest every time he looks at them.

He takes another picture with his mind right now, of Philip curled into him as they sit in the barn together. He’s showing Lukas his profile as he stares at the far wall. His face is thoughtful and his fingers are absentmindedly caressing Lukas’ left knee, and something swells in Lukas’ chest, something enormous and overwhelming in a good way and it makes his breath stutter, his fingers curling into Philip’s shoulder. 

He never expected to be this happy, not about something he fought so hard for so long. 

There’s nothing he can do but to pull him closer now, press his face into Philip’s hair for a second, and kiss the spot on his neck that he likes, before he pulls back again to keep completing his picture of Philip’s profile. He has a lot of them. But he wants another one.

“You’re staring at me.” Philip turns his head, looks at him with one of those half-grins he gives him sometimes, his tone accusing but his eyes sparkling with laughter.

“I’m not,” Lukas says. “I’m just looking. There’s a difference.”

“Oh, is there.” Philip tilts his head at him, smile widening. “Creep.”

“Hey, I have staring privileges now that I’m your boyfriend,” Lukas points out.

Philip’s smile changes, but not in a bad way. “Wait, really? You think you’re getting privileges? I mean, duties, yeah. You have to listen to my playlists and pretend to like them. But privileges?”

“Hey, I take my duties very seriously,” Lukas defends himself.

“Prove it,” Philip says, and his tone is still playful, but Lukas can feel his stomach sinking because he knows there are things he still does have to do, apologies he has to make, and he hates himself for that being necessary in the first place.

“I mean it,” he says. “I’m gonna make up for all that awful stuff I did. I promise.”

Philip’s smile falls. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. “I was only joking.”

“I’m still going to make up for it,” Lukas insists.

“You were scared,” Philip says. “I get that. You don’t have to -”

“I don’t get why you’re so cool with all that happened,” Lukas interrupts. “Like, between us. I would completely understand it if you never wanted to see me again.”

Philip just shrugs. “But I do still want to see you. Just . . . don’t pretend you don’t know me again in public. That would suck.”

“I won’t,” Lukas promises, and takes another quick snapshot of Philip’s face as he smiles at him.

**

They’re out by their tree and Philip is taking photos, and so is Lukas, just without a camera. He already has a lot of Philip in this particular spot, the best one being the one right after Lukas had confessed everything to Helen and then come here with Philip, to talk and to apologize for being an asshole before, and to kiss him as much and as long as he could. 

He has a thousand pictures of Philip from that afternoon. He hadn’t been able to stop looking and touching and drinking it all in, finally allowing himself to do so. So many memories. Every single one of them so precious.

The look on Philip’s face when he’d asked Lukas if his stomach hurt. The grin on his face when Lukas had denied it in a teasing way that was really supposed to mean ‘yes,’ a confession he hadn’t been ready to make just then.

Maybe he’s still not quite ready today. But he looks at Philip, the focused expression on his face as he tries to get the best angle or whatever for his next picture, and he feels that shiver running through his body, the one that makes his breath pick up and his skin ache to reach out and touch and be touched.

He’d never known he was able to want something this much. Because it’s never happened before. But now he can’t imagine not wanting it anymore, not wanting _him_. And yes, it does hurt, in a way, although he’s not sure that’s really the right word to describe the feeling. It’s like a pull, like a need that’s tugging at something deep inside of him. It’s a good feeling.

Philip looks up and smiles and Lukas walks over to him and hugs him, just puts his arms around him and presses his face against Philip’s hair and holds him as close as he can without seeming too needy, his heart beating against Philip’s chest and his lungs breathing in only air that’s touched Philip’s body.

His own exhale is shaky as he feels Philip’s arms closing around him in return, and he just holds on even tighter and he really doesn’t feel like he’ll ever be able to let go again.

“Hey,” Philip says softly. “Is everything okay?”

Lukas laughs a little and presses a kiss to Philip’s ear because it’s the closest thing he can reach. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it is. It is. Everything’s perfect.”

And in this moment, it is. Lukas takes a picture of it and stores it away in his heart.

**

An afternoon alone in his house, and of course Philip comes over — they know well how to make use of those unsupervised moments by now.

They take their time; something that Lukas had never expected to be into, probably because he’s never been really honest with himself about what he really wanted. It took meeting Philip to unlock that secret he’d always been carrying around with him.

Before, he’d kind of been trying not to think about sex too much, about the time he couldn’t put it off any longer. He’d done his best to convince himself that he’d want it when the time came because he’s a guy and this is what guys do. With girls.

But Philip is not a girl and Lukas doesn’t have to convince himself of anything anymore. It’s not something he has to talk himself into; he doesn’t just need to get it over with already. He _wants_. He looks forward to every time they get to do this. Every time he gets to see Philip like this, gets to touch him and memorize him and learn all the different sounds he makes when Lukas does something he likes.

Lukas really likes doing things that Philip likes. Not just when they’re having sex. Just . . . in general. Always.

Every time he’d thought about doing it before, like, every time he’d really considered it, he’d always thought it would be awkward afterwards. Back when he’d still been dreading having to do this eventually. But now that they are doing this, it’s not awkward at all.

Because Philip looks at him once they’re lying next to each other after they’re done, and his face is so open, so unguarded and vulnerable, his smile so sincere, Lukas can’t possibly feel weird about this. Not when Philip seems so happy.

There’s something in the way Philip looks at him as they’re lying there, something that’s there a lot of the time he catches him staring, but always so pronounced in these moments when neither of them is holding anything back. It looks like a reflection of that feeling Lukas gets around Philip all the time, that feeling he can’t quite express in words but that’s there all the same.

It’s another picture he saves, one he wants to recreate many times, as many times as Philip will let him. Because he likes how it makes him feel. Not the sex — well, yeah, that too, but this is . . . this is something different, something not tied to what they just did together.

So maybe Lukas has never been into art, but, maybe this is what people are talking about when they say that art holds some kind of meaning, something other than just the things you see in a picture, like trees and stars and people and stuff. Because it’s probably sappy as hell, but when he looks at Philip he thinks he understands what art is.

The picture before him has meaning. That expression in Philip’s eyes, the one he feels reflected in his own heart, that means something. Something more than just a smile.

He wants this feeling always. He wants it to fill every single cell of his body, like it’s doing right now, and he wants Philip to know he’s feeling it.

You can’t share the pictures in your mind with other people, but maybe, he thinks, he can find a way to at least show Philip what they mean to him. What he feels when he captures another moment. Because he wants him to know. He wants him to understand.

Philip should know just how important he is to Lukas and how much he’s needed and wanted, every second of every day.

**

 

It’s still a bit weird at school most of the time — Lukas isn’t really hiding it anymore, but he’s not really ready yet to advertise it either. Their relationship. The way he’s suddenly different in most people’s eyes. 

It’s a small town, and even if Lukas has accepted this truth about himself and is growing to like it, because being with Philip is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to him, that doesn’t mean that other people have accepted it or like it. And he’s always been one of the popular kids. It doesn’t feel good, having people look at him like he’s some weirdo all of a sudden. Because he’s not. And it sucks that other people think that.

Yeah, okay. He also thought liking Philip in that way was weird at first. Like he wasn’t supposed to. He doesn’t think that anymore, and he really wants to hold Philip’s hand and kiss him in public, and sometimes he does. Just not in the hallways at school, not yet, but he’s been getting better at it ever since that party in Red Hook months ago where he tried it for the first time and the world didn’t end.

What he can’t turn off anymore is the way he knows it’s showing on his face every time this feeling of amazement and awe sneaks up on him, like right now, when he’s still standing at his locker and Philip is walking away to a different class. He can’t take his eyes off of him, and he burns the picture into his memory, the way Philip’s hair looks from the back and the way his T-shirt is wrinkling where the strap of his bookbag pulls at it. He never knew a person’s back could be so attractive, and there’s just something about Philip’s skinny arms and legs that makes Lukas want to run after him and hug him.

Lukas knows how breakable human bodies can be, thought a lot about it when he was learning about safety back when he first started riding dirt bikes. And Philip looks so fragile sometimes with his long, thin limbs and that soft expression on his face. But Lukas knows he isn’t. Philip is the strongest, toughest, most resilient person he’s ever met; Lukas doesn’t know if he could have lived through half the shit Philip’s been through. Everything Philip had to do to take care of his mom, and then losing her after being sent off to live with strangers in a small, strange town he didn’t know, and then all the stuff they got caught up in after the cabin, all the shit Lukas put him through . . . Yeah. Philip is so much tougher than he looks sometimes.

That’s what’s special about this picture of him looking so lanky and fragile in this moment — there’s a quiet strength underneath all of it that Lukas admires more than he’s able to express. And you can see it, if you look closely enough. It’s not obvious at first glance, but it’s there. And once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it anymore.

Maybe that was part of the reason he kept going back to Philip during that nightmare they lived through, he thinks. That, and the fact that he was falling in love so fast it left him dizzy, and being near Philip was the only thing that still made him feel anything resembling joy, even just for moments at a time. But part of it might have been the fact that Philip was the only thing holding him together, the only safe haven left to him.

It’s all still so messed up in his head, because his world got turned upside down in more than one way in pretty much a single day — the shock of what they’d witnessed, the fear of being the next ones to die, and in between all of that realising just why he could never stop thinking of Philip, couldn’t stop wanting to be near him.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” a voice says next to him, and he turns his head to see Rose grinning up at him with a knowing look on her face.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “Uh, yeah. I mean, hi. Um. What were you saying?”

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes at him. “I was just saying hi and asking how you were doing.”

“Oh.” He swallows, smiles a little shakily. He’s trying not to hide anymore, but it just feels weird knowing she probably just caught him staring with a really dopey look on his face. “Good. I mean, yeah, good. You?”

“Oh my god, you’ve really got it bad, haven’t you?” She laughs.

“What?”

“I’ve never seen that look on your face before.” Her smile is a little sad. “That probably should have been my first clue.”

“Sorry,” he says again. “I — I didn’t mean to -”

She bumps her shoulder against his arm. “Shut up. We’ve been over this. It’s fine. You didn’t know either.”

“No,” he admits, not for the first time. “I didn’t.”

“I’m glad you’re happy, though,” she says.

“Thanks.” His smile feels more real now.

“And hey, I have a date this weekend with this guy Jacob, and he’s actually way cuter than you.”

That makes him laugh. “Shut up.”

“You are happy, right?” she asks.

He nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I really am.” It still feels a little strange sometimes, admitting that another guy can make him feel like this, but Rose is special. She gets it. And she won’t judge him.

“Good,” she says. “I’m glad.”

“Good luck on your date,” he tells her.

She gives him another smile and walks away.

Lukas closes his locker and makes his way to class, looking at the picture he has in his mind of Philip laughing when Lukas tackled him to the ground to kiss him under their tree the other day. It makes him feel warm and light and just . . . good.

**

He’s over at the Caldwell farm for dinner and he sits across from Philip, watching him as he laughs at a funny story Gabe just told them about a dog who wouldn’t stop hiding his owner’s throw pillows under the back porch.

Lukas is laughing too because it’s a funny story, but then Philip’s eyes meet his across the table and his laugh shifts into a smile, a smile so wide he knows he probably looks deranged. It’s just that Philip looks so happy. And it’s taken him a while to look really happy again after losing his mom — Lukas has done his best to cheer him up every way he could, or to distract him, and sometimes he’d just held him when he cried. But seeing him laughing like this is new and it’s so, so good.

He saves that picture too, and makes a promise to himself that he’ll do whatever he can to recreate it, to make Philip laugh like that again as many times as he can.

Because these pictures he takes — they’re memories, but they’re also inspiration. For more pictures. For more memories. For more moments that are worth capturing and keeping forever.

The others are talking on and Lukas takes a minute to take out all his favourite pictures and line them up and take stock of how many good things they’ve already been through together. How many times he’s already felt like his world finally makes sense now.

He has pictures of bad things in there too, because they’re also important to remember and he knows that. How else would they know how to do better next time? How to get through them if they happen again? So he saves those as well.

There’s quite a collection of snapshots in his mind already; way too many to fill some kind of gallery if they were all actual photos on actual paper. And he’s determined to keep adding to them. He never wants to stop.

So he stores them away safely in his mind again and turns his attention back to the real thing: his boyfriend looking at him across the table, a fond smile on his face that Philip thinks Lukas deserves and that Lukas is determined to actually earn one day. He’ll never stop trying his best, for Philip.

After dinner, they take a walk, and when Philip reaches for his hand Lukas folds their fingers together and holds on.

“Hey, my dad’s not home tomorrow night,” Lukas says. “You think there’s any way you can stay over?”

Philip shrugs. “I don’t know. I mean, I could ask? But if not, you can just sneak over after everyone’s asleep and spend the night in my room.” He grins. “Your dad won’t notice you’re missing if he’s not there to check.”

Lukas squeezes his hand a little. “This is why I’m dating you. You’re so smart.”

Philip laughs. “But hey, if your dad isn’t there tomorrow, definitely come over for dinner though. Gabe’s got a late appointment somewhere, but Helen is bringing home take-out.”

“Take-out’s good,” Lukas says. “Although I really like Gabe’s cooking.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” Philip agrees.

Lukas is silent for a minute, thinking, debating, wanting to, but he’s nervous, and more than a little afraid. But then he thinks of Philip smiling, and he knows he can do this, knows it’s the truth more than he’s ever known anything in his life. “He is a really good cook,” he repeats. “But, I don’t know, my stomach does hurt a little.”

“Oh?” Philip sounds concerned. “Really? Maybe you just ate too much, or -”

“No,” Lukas interrupts, stops walking and tugs at Philip’s hand until Philip turns and stands in front of him, looking at Lukas with a question in his eyes. “It’s not because of the food.”

Philip keeps looking at him confused for another second, biting his lip, before his eyes widen a little and his mouth shifts into a small smile. “Oh,” he says. “Are you sure?”

Lukas smiles back, his heart beating so hard in his chest, his hands a little sweaty, but yeah, he’s never going to take this back. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m sure.”

The look on Philip’s face is not one he’s seen before, but it’s a good one. Close to the one he had at that party in Red Hook, when Lukas kissed him in front of everyone, but there’s nothing nervous in it now. 

“Good,” Philip says.

“Yeah.”

“You know,” Philip’s tilts his head at him. “It’s the strangest thing, but now that you mention it, my stomach kind of hurts too.”

“It does?” Lukas asks, the tension leaving his shoulders as Philip takes a step closer and huffs out something between a laugh and a sigh.

“Of course it does, idiot,” he replies, and kisses him.

Lukas kisses back, holds him close, keeps kissing him because he needs to, because it’s all he wants to do right now.

He takes a picture with his eyes closed, of this moment in which he chose to make himself vulnerable and Philip kept him together the way he always has, and even offered his own vulnerability to Lukas in return.

And Lukas feels stronger because he risked being broken. 

After that first risk during that night in the cabin, all he felt was confused and torn and afraid. But it lead him here, so that too was a good risk to take, in retrospect. Although it was Philip who took the first step then, who took a chance without knowing for sure what would happen. Toughest person he’s ever known.

That’s another moment he’ll keep in his heart, that first kiss, back when he’d been caught between only fear and want, and the want had finally proven to be stronger. Another picture in his ever-growing collection.

Lukas loves all these snapshots he has of all those random, special and ordinary moments that mean so much to him, and he’ll keep them safe forever.

But most of all he loves that he gets to have them at all. He loves that he’s allowed close enough to take them.

There’s still other things, of course, school and motocross practice and chores and the friends who’re not weirded out by him now. All of those are important too. There will always be other things, things that are important and things that he loves. But he’ll always love this most of all, he thinks, getting to be with Philip through everything else that makes up his life.

His hands cup the back of Philip’s neck and he leans in closer. And in this moment, right here and right now, he can’t see anything else but him.

He knows it will stay in his mind once it’s over, but that’s the good thing about taking pictures of moments: first, you have to live them. And he’s really glad he gets to do that.


End file.
